TRADEX Technologies Inc. was a venture-backed company that became a leading provider of B2B marketplace e-commerce exchange solutions in 1999. Entirely Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

-based, its product TRADEX Commerce Center was an out-of-the-box software and enabled the streamlining of processes like real-time online negotiation, bidding and the secure transaction of orders from computer dealers and manufacturers.

At the peak of the dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

 in March 2000, Ariba Inc.

Ariba

Ariba is a software and information technology services company located in Sunnyvale, California.- Early life :Ariba was founded in 1996 by Bobby Lent, Boris Putanec, Paul Touw, Rob Desantis, Ed Kinsey, Paul Hegarty, and Keith Krach on the idea of using the Internet to enable companies to...

 acquired TRADEX in a stock-swap acquisition

Acquisition

Acquisition may refer to:* Takeover, the acquisition of a company* Mergers and acquisitions, strategy of buying and selling of various companies to quickly grow a company...

 worth US$5.6 billion

1000000000 (number)

1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001.In scientific notation, it is written as 109....

.

History

The software was created in 1995 under the lead of the Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Aegerter

Daniel Aegerter

Daniel Aegerter is a Swiss investor and entrepreneur and the Chairman of his family office organization Armada Investment Group based in Zurich, Switzerland....

 as an Internet-based system for automating purchase processes for the suppliers and customers of his Swiss company Dynabit. Subsequently, TRADEX Electronic Commerce Systems Inc. was incorporated in Tampa

Tâmpa

Tâmpa may refer to several villages in Romania:* Tâmpa, a village in Băcia Commune, Hunedoara County* Tâmpa, a village in Miercurea Nirajului, Mureş County* Tâmpa, a mountain in Braşov city...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 as a spin off from Dynabit.

On the day of its launch, TRADEX offered a wholesale marketplace for the sale of new computer equipment with 40 vendors offering 15,000 products. In 1996, TRADEX had gained 480 customers within three months and soon had over 70 vendors and over 750 buyers in 58 countries. Among TRADEX’s customers were Raytheon

Raytheon

Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...

, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....

 (NTT), MetalSite, PlasticsNet, VerticalNet, Electronic Data Systems

Electronic Data Systems

HP Enterprise Services is the global business and technology services division of Hewlett Packard's HP Enterprise Business strategic business unit. It was formed by the combination of HP's legacy services consulting and outsourcing business and the integration of acquired Electronic Data Systems,...

 (EDS), American Express

American Express

American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...

 and Chemdex. In 1999, TRADEX had 180 employees, when it moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia, and it had further offices in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Dallas, Tampa, San Francisco, Washington D.C., London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

.

Investors

By September 1999, TRADEX had raised US$ 28 million from its investors Internet Capital Group

Internet Capital Group

Internet Capital Group , is a publicly-traded venture capital firm founded in 1996 by Ken Fox and Walter Buckley. ICG raised $178.8 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq in August 1999....

, Sigma Partners, Apex Investment Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, First Analysis Corporation, Imlay Investments and United Parcel Service

United Parcel Service

United Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...

.

Sale to Ariba

In December 1999, Ariba announced its acquisition of TRADEX in a stock-for-stock merger valued at US$1.86 billion prior to its subsequent stock-splits.

On March 10, 2000, the day when the NASDAQ Composite

Nasdaq Composite

The Nasdaq Composite is a stock market index of the common stocks and similar securities listed on the NASDAQ stock market, meaning that it has over 3,000 components. It is highly followed in the U.S. as an indicator of the performance of stocks of technology companies and growth companies. ...

 reached its highest level during the Internet boom, Ariba announced the successful completion of its TRADEX acquisition. Ariba’s stock closing price on March 9, 2000, was US$ 320.88 and the TRADEX transaction was valued US$ 5.6 billion.

Products

TRADE'ex offered 3 online procurement systems for connecting distributors with suppliers: one for the vertical trading hubs, another for large enterprises and a third for the distributor channel segment. The software suite was scalable and had an object-based business engine incorporating CORBA and JavaBeans technologies.

In 1997, the enterprise software products TRADE’ex Distributor and TRADE’ex Market Maker received the 100% Pure Java Certification from Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

. The software TRADE'ex Market Maker received an award from the Gartner Group and InformationWeek

InformationWeek

InformationWeek is a weekly print magazine, an online site with corresponding face-to-face and virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was first published in 1979 by CMP Media, later called CMP Technology. On February 29, 2008, CMP Technology was...

as the Best Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Over the Internet solution at the 1996 Internet and Electronic Commerce show in San Francisco.